The number of actual players was much higher to start with – Blizzard offered the Diablo III game for free for World of Warcraft players that signed up for a yearly subscription, all 1.2 million of them. A week after the release, 6.5 million copies have been sold.
“We’re definitely thrilled that so many people around the world were excited to pick up their copy of Diablo 3 and jump in the moment it went live,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We also regret that our preparations were not enough to ensure everyone had a seamless experience when they did so. I want to reaffirm our commitment to make sure the millions of Diablo 3 players out there have a great experience with the game moving forward, and I also want to thank them for their ongoing support.”
As a result of this impressive result, Amazon and GameStop named the Diablo III launch the biggest ever in PC gaming history.
Other than being downright impressive, this result should serve as a lesson to PR agencies, professionals and businesses in general – create an awesome product after releasing several others in the past that people just love to buy and use, and even a world scale failure will be too insignificant to prevent your success.